


Not-So-Irrational Fears

by straight_as_a_curly_fry



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, everybody is afraid of something, fears, i should really stop inflicting my writing upon you people., im so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-29
Updated: 2013-05-29
Packaged: 2017-12-13 08:12:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/822011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straight_as_a_curly_fry/pseuds/straight_as_a_curly_fry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everybody's afraid of something, and that includes the avengers. Just because they can fight aliens, doesn't mean they can face spiders. Or squirrels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not-So-Irrational Fears

Not-So-Irrational Fears

It took Tony three months to realise that the avengers had moved into his tower. It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed them around, it was just that he never really thought about it. Of course he’d invited Bruce to stay-there was no way he was losing his sciencebro-and Clint and Natasha had needed a place to stay after the helicarrier crashed, which had lead to the revelation that Steve had been staying there too, and really it just wouldn’t have been fair not to invite Thoy after, right? It wasn’t like he’d known they’d be staying permanently, but hey, at least they were learning about each other right? The only bad thing about having the avengers in the tower, was that they kept finding out things he didn’t want them to know.

“Hey,” Clint asked one night at dinner, “Is there a pool anywhere in this enormous tower of yours?”

Tony, upon hearing the question, choked rather gracefully on his pasta. Thankfully Natasha answered for him as he continued to cough up what seemed to be a delightful combination of spaghetti and his dignity.

“No,” she said, “Tony’s afraid of water, there’s no way he would build a pool here.”

“What!” protested Tony once he’d finished dispelling his dinner from his throat, “I’m not afraid of water! I just... don’t like it.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow dubiously, “You don’t shower unless Pepper forces you to, you wash your hands with hand sanitizer so you don’t have to put them in the sink, and you don’t even drink water unless Steve goes on a health rant; what part of that doesn’t say ‘irrational fear of water’?”

Tony scowled, and pushed up from the table suddenly, “I’m not hungry anymore.” he said as he left the room.

Clint gaped after him, “What did I do?” he asked, “I just wanted to go for a swim!”

“It wasn’t you.” Bruce said, “Tony doesn’t like to talk about it, but he’s been afraid of water since Afghanistan.” 

Natasha nodded, but everybody else just looked rather confused, “The rest of them don’t know.” she said, “You should probably explain, or else they’ll never find out. I’d just rather not listen to it.” 

Bruce heaved a sigh, but waited for her to leave the room before he continued, “Listen closely, because I’m only saying this once. Tony was held under water. Multiple times. While live wires were hanging out of his chest.”

Steve and Clint both looked shocked, and Thor slammed his fist down on this table, “Who were these demons!” he yelled, “I shall flay their skin from their bodies!”

“All taken care of,” Bruce replied wryly, “Tony... disposed of them.”

Steve nodded, “Good.”

Meanwhile Natasha followed Tony down to the lab, and keyed in her override code when he denied her access.

“I really shouldn’t have given you guys those,” he muttered.

Natasha rolled her eyes, and held her arms out, “Come here,” she said, “You need a hug.”

Tony hesitated only a moment, before pressing himself against her, and wrapping his arms around her, “Sorry.” he said, “I just- I don’t want anybody to think I’m weak.”

Natasha snorted, “Don’t worry about it, if you tell anybody about it I’ll just deny it. And you’re not weak.”

“Yeah,” Tony snarked, “because it’s perfectly normal for a grown man to be afraid of showers.”

Natasha was silent for a moment, before muttering into his hair, “I’m afraid of spiders” she said.

“The Black Widow is afraid of spiders?” Tony asked, pulling away from her.

Natasha shrugged, “Everybody has something.

~~~~This is a line break~~~~

Clint hated being underground. It wasn’t exactly a secret that he despised basements, and couldn’t stand anything that involved the word ‘tunnel’, but it wasn’t something he actively broadcasted either. That’s probably why he agreed to go down to Tony’s underground storage unit with him; manly pride and all that. 

“Hey Merida,” Tony snarked, “Just hold the flashlight and try not to get lost, got it?”

Clint snorted, “As you wish Princess Antonia.”

“Haha, very funny.” Tony muttered, walking through the concrete tunnel. Storage units were lined up on either side, all with labels like ‘radioactive’, or ‘things that should never have AI’, (Clint guessed that Tony had been doing most of the labeling). The one Tony wanted was about halfway down the hallway and was labeled ‘shitty college stuff’. 

“Tony,” Clint said, “not that I’m questioning your judgement, but why did you drag me down here if you’re just looking at college memorabilia?” 

Tony snorted, “I don’t have memorabilia. I have failed robots, and AI codes that most people couldn’t do when they were forty, let alone fourteen. It just so happens that one of the robots has a part that I need which my manufacturer doesn’t make anymore. I could make it myself I guess, but that would be a waste of my time.”

Clint sighed, “Fine, let’s just get out of here.”

‘Why? Don’t like the creepy-underground-military-base feel we’ve got going on?”

“Not my favourite.” Clint said wryly, “I much prefer open roofs twenty stories high.”

Tony nodded, and reached forward to key in the code, “I really hope I remember this... I haven’t been down here in awhile.” he said whilst punching in a few numbers.

“What happens if you don’t-” he said, getting cut off by a flashing red light.

“Shit!” Tony said, “Barton run!” 

“What why?”

Tony groaned and pushed past him, just as he reached the elevator though, a metal door slammed shut over it. 

“That’s why.” the inventor sulked, “Now we’re locked in.”

Clint swore. It was alright though, there was no use banicking. They’d be fine. They were in the avengers tower, nothing could happen to them there. Fuck. Even the tower could collapse though, and what if nobody knew where they were? What was going to happen to them? They were going to be trapped there forever, and die of dehydration and-

“Clint!” Tony snapped, “Clint it’s alright! I just got the code wrong. It gets locked so nobody can steal anything. Security will be down here in about two minutes, and we’ll be fine. I promise you we’re going to be okay Clint.”

Clint took a few steadying breaths, and smiled weakly, “Sorry about that.”

“Being underground is that bad?” Tony asked, obviously curious but trying not to show it too much.

“My Dad was fond of basements.” Clint said stiffly, “More actually he was fond of locking kids in them if they misbehaved.”

Tony winced. Howard had been an ass, and maybe he’d hit him once or twice, but he’d never done anything so bad that Tony was still afraid because of it.

Tony reached forward slightly, and pulled Clint into a hug, “Security will be here in approximately thirty seconds. I can get this thing some other day. I’ll make Steve be my slave and lug it out.”

Clint chuckled lightly, and relaxed into the hug. They were going to be fine.

~~~~This is a line break~~~~

Steve couldn’t avoid the cold, not in New York anyways; but he could try. It was why he stayed inside as much as he could, and only left for avengers missions, and it was why the heating was always on full blast in the tower during the winter months to.

“Ohmygod,” Clint said, “I’m sweating like a pig!” he said.

“That’s inacurate,” Bruce replied, “Pigs don’t sweat. It is hot though.”

“Sorry about that?” Steve said sheepishly, “I turned the heat up.”

“Why the hell would you do that?” Tony moaned, “I think I’m melting. Literally melting. I might have to go bury myself in a snow bank to cool down.”

Steve flinched, and Natasha looked at him oddly, but then Thor walked in and the attention shifted to him.

“Uh Thor,” Clint said, “Not to be a party pooper, but why are you naked?”

“Is the removal of layers not customary in midgardian culture when faced with heat?”

“Yes Thor,” said Natasha, “Just not quite that many layers.”

After that Steve turned the temperature down and just avoided looking outside. Nobody mentioned the incident again, and Steve figured nobody had noticed his aversion to the cold. His assumption was proved wrong when Tony made an announcement at breakfast one day, “Okay,” he said, “Pepper and Natasha have convinced me that we should go to my Malibu house for Christmas, and I figure we should just stay there for a while. It’s nice, and it’s got pretty much everything we need: food, girls, beaches, booze, you know. The usual.”

The rest of the team agreed readily, and Steve smiled happily to himself. After breakfast was done, he stopped Tony in the corridor, “Thanks Tony.” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. It was all the girls; yup, all them. I need to mix chemicals and see if they explode in order to avoid this conversation. Bye now.”

Steve stood in the hallway and smiled after the eccentric inventor. The man tried to pretend he didn’t care about them, but they all knew that was a lie.

~~~~This is a line break~~~~

“ANTHONY!” Thor boomed across central park, “GET THIS FURRY RODENT AWAY FROM ME OR I SHALL SMITE IT WITH MJOLNIR.”

Tony sighed, and sprinted off to save yet another squirrel.

~~~~This is a line break~~~~

The first time the avengers took Bruce to a gala, he hulked out. Twice. It wasn’t like the people were especially annoying, or there was anybody he hated; he just couldn’t stand all the people touching him, it made him so antsy!

“Sorry,” Bruce muttered weekly, sitting in the remaining shreds of his tuxedo, “I didn’t know that would happen.”

“No problem,” Tony smirked, “Nobody got hurt, and it got me out of that party so I’d say it’s all good. Now c’mon big guy, let’s get you back to the tower.”

Tony held out his hand, and Bruce took it tentatively. Once he was standing up Tony pulled him forward, and Bruce sank into the hug.

“Thanks,” Tony said quietly.

Bruce looked at him confusedly, “For what?”

“Letting me hug you.”

~~~~yet another line break~~~~

“Fuck!” Natasha swore during movie night, “Somebody get it!”

“What?” Thor boomed, “What is wrong, where is this thing?”

Natasha pointed a shaky finger towards the corner of the tv screen, and Thor saw a spider hanging lazily in front of it. His mouth opened into an ‘o’ shape, and he quickly stood up and walked over, “Don’t worry,” he said, “I shall take care of it.”

Natasha tried to pretend it didn’t really matter, but he could see how grateful she was when he cupped his hands around the spider and walked over to put it on the other side of the window. Tony made a comment about getting on with the show, and soon enough they were back to watching Harry Potter together. 

“What do you know,” Clint mumbled, too low for anybody but Thor to hear, “We really are becoming a team.”

END


End file.
